


catcident

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cats, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, as you can see i've given up on trying to title, definitely crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 10:45:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18259694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: Jim sees Mycroft get turned into a cat





	catcident

Jim decides to visit Mycroft in his office, as per his request to “be civil” about it for once. No bomb threats, no international crises, just popping by to say hi.

 

He gets nudged aside immediately for his trouble; Mycroft’s at the door when he enters, and looking quite busy.

 

“Not now, Jim. There is a disgraced scientist who'd gotten loose with his research, and built a gene-rewriting cannon - you _cannot_ imagine the amount of paperwork I have to deal with,” Mycroft says, tucking his files underneath and arm and picking up his umbrella as he goes.

 

Jim blinks, processing the words.

 

“There’s a mad scientist loose with a supervillain-level weapon and you’re doing _paperwork?”_ The look he shoots Mycroft goes completely unacknowledged, as Mycroft is too busy pushing past him to rush out his office.

 

Jim decides to take a seat to wait - Mycroft can’t be too long, he left his coat. Mycroft was always working on these completely ridiculous and fantastical cases, but only in the most _tedious_ and uninteresting capacities, and Jim still wasn’t sure he wasn't just being made fun of. But not a moment later, he hears a contained flashbang go off, and the flash of light through the crack of the door is unmistakable.

 

He waits another moment or two, and, hearing nothing, decides to step out into the hall.

 

That’s when he hears the clatter of something falling to the ground.

 

“Mycroft?” Jim calls out, walking toward the sound and cursing Mycroft’s stupid abandoned basement of an office.

 

He turns the corner to find Mycroft’s umbrella forgotten on the floor - the source of the clatter - and slowly bends down to pick it up.

 

“Mycroft?” he calls again.

 

There’s no answer; he’s nowhere to be seen. In fact the hall is completely empty, and the only way out would be the elevator, or the stairs that would have set off the fire alarm.

 

Then he hears a small, pitiful sound.

 

Jim looks down to find a small, charcoal grey kitten with big blue eyes rubbing its paw against its face, hiding beside the umbrella.

 

He stares at it for a good, long moment, until the cat looks up at him and blinks.

 

“Mycroft..?” he croaks.

 

.

 

The idea of hunting down a mad scientist with a gene-editing cannon sounds wonderfully novel, but the small kitten looks so distressed Jim decides to scoop him up and put him somewhere safe first.

 

Being picked up does no good - it starts to mewl even more piteously, if possible.

 

“Alright, alright, your office then?” Jim says. Besides, the files Mycroft had were gone, and Jim didn’t know where else to start. Perhaps there would be some information of use back in the office.

 

He sets kitty-Mycroft down in his big chair gently, but gets a shrieking squeak for his efforts.

 

“Right, right, too short to see anything like this, aren’t you,” Jim mutters, setting him on the desk instead. That’s when he notices there’s no laptop.

 

“Where’s your computer?” Jim asks.

 

He’s talking to a _cat._

 

The kitten mewls and buries its face in its paws.

 

“Of course,” Jim sighs. “All in your head.”

 

He looks around the office, and realizes he doesn’t have a plan. He could canvas the hallway, see which way the perp went, and perhaps follow up with CCTV feeds to track down his exact location. He could hack that military base Sherlock was always on about and see if there were any recently missing-slash-escaped scientists, and go from there.

 

He could do this all from the comfort of his own home, with access to a computer, because the little kitten was now mewing so pitifully as to almost be weeping.

 

Jim smuggles him out of the building inside his jacket.

 

.

 

Jim remembers halfway to the house that Mycroft’s fridge is a travesty, and texts someone to meet him with groceries and few miscellaneous items.

 

“Does this look familiar?” Jim asks, as they step into Mycroft’s home. The small, single emphatic mew! seems to be in his favor.

 

He rifles through the paper bags until he finds what he’s looking for, then walks them into the living room.

 

There, he spills the contents of two scrabble boards onto the carpet.

 

The kitten watches him do so without reaction.

 

“There,” Jim says. “Spell out everything I need to know.”

 

The kitten watches him for another good moment, then pads over onto the lettered tiles, and curls up and lies down.

 

“Mycroft!” Jim says, exasperated. “No, these letters are for spelling, not sleeping. Good God, have you retained any memories? Are you just a kitten now?”

 

The cat ignores him, chewing on a tile.

 

After a moment he groans and relents, picking up the groceries to bring into the kitchen. He comes back around for the kitten after.

 

.

 

Jim sets a bowl of milk in front of the small thing and waits.

 

“You do drink milk, right?” he asks nervously. “I’ve cat food too, but I wasn’t sure. But! I’ve also got some salmon.”

 

He heads towards the fridge to get it, and returns to find that Mycroft has fallen face-first into the milk.

 

“Mycroft!”

 

.

 

The bath is _terrible._

 

Jim finds himself almost grateful for the incessant yowling of the little creature because at least that means he hasn’t gone and drowned his boyfriend.

 

He wraps the thing in a fluffy towel once it’s over, and it glares at him but does look mollified.

 

“You’re like a burrito,” Jim tells him. He boops the kitten on the nose, and it yawns.

 

Jim frowns.

 

.

 

He builds a sort of moat-like structure of blankets around kitten-Mycroft, on Mycroft’s side of the bed, which he takes to kneading with his tiny paws.

 

Jim thinks it’s supposed to be a sign of approval.

 

“But what if I roll over in the middle of the night and kill you in my sleep?” he wonders aloud.

 

Kitten-Mycroft couldn’t care less; he is already asleep.

 

“Well,” Jim says with a yawn. “Maybe you’ll be back to normal in the morning.”

 

.

 

Kitten-Mycroft is still a kitten in the morning.

 

Jim awakens to paws on his face.

 

“Oh nooo,” he moans closing his eyes once again. He sighs. Alright if he had to track down that gene-change-o-meter thing himself today, he could do that.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Jim’s eyes fly open, and he turns to stare at the cat - very much still a cat, but that is very much Mycroft Holmes’s voice. For a second he thinks Mycroft’s regained power of speech but his kitten self is so _tiny_ and his voice is much too deep for that and-

 

He realizes Mycroft Holmes (human) is standing beside him, that ever familiar confused little frown on his face.

 

“You’re…human,” Jim says slowly. It’s early. He had a rough night.

 

“Yes…” Mycroft answers, just as slowly. “What is the cat doing in my bed?”

 

“Well.” Jim sits up, staring at the cat. “Funny story. Last night. I thought the cat was you.”

 

Mycroft’s expression is just shy of horrified. Well, he has good reason to fear for Jim’s sanity.

 

“The mad scientist on the loose! And then the gene-rewriting cannon!” Jim explains, gesturing. “After you left I was waiting in your office but then this flash bang went off, and there you were, a tiny kitten next to your umbrella.”

 

“I was wondering where that went,” Mycroft mutters. He goes on, “I’d dropped it helping one of the lab assistant transporting more of the specimens being experimented on. The cat must have escaped in the mix.”

 

“And as for the scientist,” Mycroft says, giving Jim a funny look. “He was already in _custody_. Hence the paperwork?”

 

Jim blinks. That made sense.

 

He picks up the kitten and looks into its eyes. Lab specimen, huh? Now that he was thinking clearly, it was nothing like Mycroft at all.

 

He turns the kitten around and looks up at Mycroft, making full use of their combined sad eyes.

 

“Can we keep him?”

 


End file.
